In the video Last Christmas, Crazy Frog pounds away at buttons that alternately free Santa from prison and lock him back in. It’s charming because Crazy Frog is, well, crazy and because he does liberate Santa in the end, using a grappling hook to tear out the gate to his cell.
This behavior is less charming when the issue is selling women’s bodies. On the website of the Phoenix New Times, you’ll find an excellent article on the misery of prostitution. On the same page, however, is a link to 3,828 “adult entertainment” classified ads. These ads leave little to the imagination about what is being sold, as you will see.
First, some selections from “Ex-Prostitutes Who Proselytize”…
It isn’t hard to get into the sex industry. The hard part is getting out…The Phoenix New Times is a Village Voice Media property. According to the New York City chapter of the National Organization for Women, the adult ads on the back pages of The Village Voice alone generate $80,000 per month in revenue (PDF). Let’s follow the Phoenix New Times’ link to backpage.com (explicit text and pictures) and see what VVM is selling this week in New York City.
[Kathleen] Mitchell [a former madam] now plays a different role in the lives of prostitutes. A year spent behind bars offered respite from her pimp and helped her see the reality of prostitution…
When vice targets Van Buren Street [in Phoenix], officers arrest 35 to 50 prostitutes nightly. In 1999, nearly 1,600 were arrested…
“Prostitution is a behavior addiction,” explains Richard, a former male prostitute and the only man who’s a member of the local PA chapter. “You are more addicted to the lifestyle, power — validating yourself with feeling loved, in control, feeling wanted. It’s also the running-gunning part — the excitement of the score and the chase. It’s all the same elements of drug addiction…”
All the women [at DIGNITY House, a residency program] have war stories to tell — stabbings, beatings, rapes — and all of them stayed on the streets despite the consequences. The details of their stories differ, but they share common threads. Nearly all of them experienced childhood sexual abuse, and all these women turned to prostitution for drugs, men or both…
By the time the women are ready to ask for help, many of them have severe medical problems. Crack addicts have respiratory problems, heroin addicts have abscesses. Sexually transmitted diseases are rampant. Many are missing teeth, either from beatings or neglect…
[Manny, a former pimp,] says it’s not difficult for a pimp to recruit his harem.
“You don’t have to tie a girl up — you just keep her high.”
…Betty looks Vanessa over and observes that the more decrepit a hooker looks, the more they get picked up. Johns see vulnerability; they see a weakness, they see a five-dollar blow job…
…”If [prostitutes] have good help, it is very possible to recover,” [Dr. Patrick Carnes, a sexual disorders specialist,] says. “The biggest problem is lack of resources.”
…In terms of social programs and community education, Mitchell believes prostitution is where domestic violence was 15 years ago. She wants to educate people about the reality of prostitution as she knows it…
“[The police] believe women are more of the problem,” Mitchell says. “They don’t quite get it yet that if they get rid of the men customers, the women aren’t going to be there because the money won’t be there.”
A quick guide to some of the abbreviations:
BBBJ – BareBack Blow Job (no condom, see discussion of risks)
CIM – Cum In Mouth
fs – Full Service – conventional sexual intercourse
GFE – girl friend experience – sex without condoms, or alternately, the escort will have a warm personality, be willing to kiss the client, hold hands and be generally affectionate. This also includes an assumption that the girl will perform oral sex without a condom barrier.
Greek welcome – willing to have anal sex with the client
Adulteasterngirls
Welcome to Adulteasterngirls. We have well selected girls from Asian…
Low Rate Chinese Cuite
Curvy, voluptuous latina for an erotic GFE… and more!
FIORELLA – 100% All Natural Busty Experienced Latina in Private Midtown Apartment Sexy voluptuous Latina (38D-24-36) for all desires — fluent in Greek…
NEW HOT ASIAN ___ChoiceAngels____ 100% Real Photo
we update new girls every weeks …
Korean Doll
My name is Sarah, your Korean princess… Incall only…
CICI and SUJEE – Red hot dynamic Asian duo! – REAL PIX!!! – 24
WILD PUSSY CAT. All the way ALL night Long….
SENSUAL BODY RUBS, WILD EROTIC ENCOUNTERS, MAKE ME KEEP YOUR SECRET !
SEDUCTIVE GREEN EYED DIRTY BLOND, REAL DIRTY…WITH A HOT ASS THAT WILL ACTUALLY MAKE U CUM HOME. I LIKE TO BE TOSSED AROUND LIKE I DON’T KNOW WHAT HIT ME. TIE ME UP, EROTIC ROLE PLAY & NASTY, DIRTY TALK. NO LIMITS! TAKE YOUR FANTASIES OUT ON ME!!!!
The Original– H*A*L*F**P*R*I*C*E-**$50 half **$50 half f/s in/outcalls**Thousands of escorts avail
I have an ORAL FIXATION… Can YOU help me?? BBBJ & CIM
…Donation fees:
15 min.s = $120
1/2 hour = $160…
Cum on… call me now!…
Russian beauty IVONA 38DDD…
ALL your fantazies can be real ,if you call me.I am open minded russian lady.You will not be dissappointed when you meet me the photos you see real and all me.Are you looking to have some fun ????stop right here.
1/2 HOUR 140 ROSES, 1 HOUR 200 ROSES
All in all, there are over 5,000 ads in the adult category, and that’s just for the New York metro. If pimping on a grand scale is what it takes to keep Village Voice Media in business, this “progressive” conglomerate has outlived its usefulness. Let VVM Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Ji********@vi***************.com“>Jim Larkin know how you feel.
See also:
Another Victory for NOW-NYC: New York Magazine Drops Sex Ads
One would think that this would be exactly the kind of exploitation the [Village] Voice would revel in exposing. But because the Voice is free, it apparently needs the revenue brought in by, this week, 10 pages of these ads.
And so its press release yammers on about how our freedoms are “under attack by the Bush administration,” and makes NOW sound like the Taliban, and finally trots out the same pathetic excuse New York once made: “If there is evidence that any advertiser in our pages engaged in…sex slavery…” Blah blah blah.
It’s hard to be part of the solution, when you’re part of the problem.
“New York Press No Longer Marketing Arm for Prostitution/Trafficking”
Belltown Messenger: “Greed, Lust and Ink”
…the only motivation for running escort ads in the first place is unbridled greed-and these supposedly liberal publications can’t have it both ways when defending the rights of society’s underdogs in their editorial content…
MSNBC Investigates Human Trafficking and Prostitution in the US; Valley Advocate Advertises “Foreign Fantasies” Where “Everything Goes”
It’s inspiring to see media investigating injustice as opposed to profiting from it. In December, MSNBC premiered its undercover investigation of “Sex Slaves in America” (article and videos). Here are selections from the transcript. Ask yourself, do these prostitutes sound like freely consenting adults living an attractive life?
Prostitution: Factsheet on Human Rights Violations
Pornography Trains and Indoctrinates Prostitutes
In a study of 475 people in prostitution (including women, men, and the transgendered) from five countries (South Africa, Thailand, Turkey, USA, and Zambia)…92% stated that they wanted to escape prostitution immediately…
Call to Action: Ask the Valley Advocate’s New Owner to Drop the Sex Ads
Many of the escort ads in the Advocate appear to be blatant come-ons for prostitution. The life of these escorts is miserable… “In one study, 75% of women in escort prostitution had attempted suicide. Prostituted women comprised 15% of all completed suicides reported by hospitals.”
Ask the Valley Advocate to stop profiting from the sexual exploitation of women
Pasadena Weekly: “Lives for sale”
…Suriyopaf explained that many prostitutes may actually be victims of human trafficking — young girls from Asia and other impoverished places throughout the world who, lured by the promise of legitimate work, agree to be smuggled into the US only to become exploited as sex slaves with little or no hope of escape.
A federal crime with penalties as high as life in prison, human trafficking is also a burgeoning industry, with as many as 50,000 women and children trafficked into the United States each year. Most victims end up coming to Los Angeles or San Francisco and, according to UC Berkeley researchers, nearly half work in the underground sex-for-sale economy.
Gloria Steinem at Smith: Cooperation, Not Domination
S.M. Berg: Hey, progressives! Cathouse got your tongue?
“Trade – A Film Brings Sex Trafficking Home”
New York Times: “The Girls Next Door”; Worldwide Sex Trafficking; Role of Porn
Most girls burn out quickly, generally within
2-4 years. Law enforcement often fails to perceive trafficking as a serious problem, or even participates in the trade, as do elements of the media, which run traffickers’ ads for “models” and “nannies”…
In Eastern European capitals like Kiev and Moscow, dozens of sex-trafficking rings advertise nanny positions in the United States in local newspapers; others claim to be scouting for models and actresses…Realities of Teen Prostitution Mock Notions of ‘Sex Work’, ‘Sex-Positive’, ‘Freedom’ and ‘Empowerment’; Media Glamorizes Pimps
If anything, the women I talked to said that the sex in the U.S. is even rougher than what the girls face on Calle Santo Tomas. Rosario, a woman I met in Mexico City, who had been trafficked to New York and held captive for a number of years, said: ”In America we had ‘special jobs.’ Oral sex, anal sex, often with many men. Sex is now more adventurous, harder.” She said that she believed younger foreign girls were in demand in the U.S. because of an increased appetite for more aggressive, dangerous sex. Traffickers need younger and younger girls, she suggested, simply because they are more pliable. In Eastern Europe, too, the typical age of sex-trafficking victims is plummeting; according to Matei of Reaching Out, while most girls used to be in their late teens and 20’s, 13-year-olds are now far from unusual…
The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that between 100,000 and 3 million American kids under age 18 are involved in prostitution and they’re often targeted by sexual predators…
Pimps are criminals, but often depicted in a glamorous way in movies like “Hustle and Flow,” in music videos, and in national magazines.
For example, in the Dec. 16, 2006 issue of Rolling Stone magazine, rapper Snoop Dogg was featured on the cover with the headline, “At Home With America’s Most Lovable Pimp.”
“I think in the last couple years we’ve seen a real increase in the glorification of pimp culture,” Lloyd says. “Girls growing up now, and boys too, are beginning to see this as cute and sexy or glamorous and not really understanding the realities of the sex industry…”
“What you see in the movies, what you see on TV — it’s not like that,” Sara says. “They don’t tell you the part about the rapes. They don’t tell you about getting beat up. They don’t tell you that you might die every day.”
…an estimated 80 to 95 percent of child prostitutes have a history of sexual abuse…
Salon: Atlanta’s underage sex trade
The problem isn’t restricted to so-called Hotlanta; Herbert notes, dispiritedly, that “the overall market for sex with kids is booming in many parts of the U.S.” But the city’s role as a convention and travel hub has given it a particular boost. And advocates say that the prevailing preference for ever-younger prostitutes — fueled by “the cultural emphasis on the sexual appeal of very young women and girls” and “the widely held belief among johns that there is less risk of contracting a disease from younger prostitutes” — has pimps and sex traffickers recruiting more at-risk kids than ever before.
Strip Clubs Are the Next Hot Thing on Wall Street, Fund Manager Tells Barron’s
“…the girls who work there, the dancers, or what the industry calls the “talent,” pay $150 to $200 a shift for the privilege of working…
“I asked one guy in the business, ‘What’s the biggest risk to your business model?’ He said if the government stops immigration from Eastern Europe.”
Prostitution Research & Education: How Prostitution Works
Real sexual relationships are not hard to find. There are plenty of adults of both sexes who are willing to have sex if someone treats them well, and asks. But there lies the problem. Some people do not want an equal, sharing relationship. They do not want to be nice. They do not want to ask. They like the power involved in buying a human being who can be made to do almost anything.
Sweden’s Prostitution Solution: Why Hasn’t Anyone Tried This Before?
In 1999, after years of research and study, Sweden passed legislation that a) criminalizes the buying of sex, and b) decriminalizes the selling of sex…
The hang-up, the place where their best efforts had snagged, was that law enforcement wasn’t doing it’s part. The police themselves, it was determined, needed in-depth training and orientation to what the Swedish legislature already understood profoundly. Prostitution is a form of male violence against women. The exploiter/buyers need to be punished, and the victim/prostitutes need to be helped…